Who are all these people and why are they calling me MckMama?

Yes, I have blogged this before. But today’s version of this post includes tons of never before seen footage. Or something like that. We’re in the thick of our blog and life changes and can’t wait to be back with entirely brand new posts soon!

But until then…

Who am I? Why do I call myself MckMama? And where on earth did I come from!? Before I start with and where did I go and you start singing this song in your head, I’ll just tell you. So, if you’ve ever wondered, grab a tall glass of lemonade and read on…

In late summer, 1977, I am born, the first child in my family, in a state known for its cheese. Elvis dies. I meet baby Prince Charming, delivered almost exactly a year earlier by the same OB as I was, in our church nursery.

At age 3, in the spring of 1981, I am knocked unconscious after falling off a large play structure while vacationing with my parents in Paris. I am hospitalized for a few days and get a doll that I name Mawasha. My parents don’t speak French and have a difficult time communicating with doctors in the hospital. I remember a large glass wall separated my room from the room of another young girl with a huge cast on her leg.

In the summer of 1981, a huge craze is sparked when Pac-Man is introduced, I become a big sister when baby Hilary is born, and MTV emerges.

I attend a Christian school, and in 1986, become obsessed with educator Christa McAuliffe, have her photo hanging in my bedroom, and then watch in horror with the rest of my 3rd grade class as the space shuttle Challenger exploded. Later that year, I accept Christ as my personal savior and am baptized by my father at our church.

In 1989, the Berlin Wall falls. My dad visits Germany and brings me home a piece. It has red paint on it.

My parents and I make the decision that I’ll switch from private to public for high school. In the fall of 1991, I enroll at Central High School and only know one person in my class of 377 students. I am possibly the most freaked-out Freshman ever. I join the swim team. I have a mad, mad crush on Prince Charming, who runs track and Cross Country for my high school’s rival school across town and who I see at church every Wednesday and Sunday.

In September of 1992, Prince Charming’s brother and father are killed in an accident. I knew them well and I remember holding Prince Charming’s hand briefly at their funeral. It was my first taste of death and it stung me very deeply.

I decide to become healthier and declare that I’m a vegetarian in 1993. I eat no meat at all for the next 6 years. I have trouble deciding if I want to study math and physics or become a nutritionist when I grow up. Either way, I know I want at least six children once I am married. All the while, I really enjoy art classes, but don’t consider that course of study to hold any future for me. Joey Buttafuco becomes a household name. I have my wisdom teeth removed.

In 1994, I participate in an exchange program in Germany, live with a family whose son listens to Rage Against the Machine, attend school and have my first kiss while still overseas. His name was Ulrich Duedenhoeffer. That summer, I take a missions trip to Mexico with Prince Charming and other kids from our church. I braid his long hair while we ride in the van and my heart races. We visit Waco, Texas and see what remains of the Branch Davidian Compound. It is very, very hot and there are ants everywhere.

I graduate high school 7th in my class with a 4.2 cumulative GPA (Gotta love those accelerated classes with their weighted grades) in 1995, having never received a B, had a real boyfriend or ever said a swear word. I am voted captain of the swim team and swim at the State Swim Meet. The Oklahoma City bombing tragedy occurs. I prepare to move over 3 hours away–to the big city where we currently still live–for college. I don’t realize it, but my legalistic view of Christianity is about to change.

In 1996 while in college, I vacillate between wanting to study math and medicine. I end up settling on studio art instead and I pursue that relentlessly for the rest of my college career. I also major in Bible. People are still doing the Macarena. I join the soccer team, but start rarely and score only one goal during my entire career. I begin to learn more about God’s grace, mercy and forgiveness. I meet my dear friends Brittney, Shanel, Rachel and Katie.

I learn how to flirt in 1997 and have more than my fair share of boyfriends for the first time in my life, but still pine after tall, blonde Prince Charming when I’m home from college and run into him at church. I work at a Bible Camp in Nebraska in the summers, right off I-80. Dolly the sheep is cloned. I switch my major from Studio Art to K-12 Art Education. I have a spiritual awakening after experiencing hurt and heartache and re-commit my life to Jesus. I begin to walk with Him personally–reading my Bible, praying with passion–for the first time in my life. I begin to realize that Christianity is not about doing the right things but about knowing the right Person.

I graduate from college in the spring of 1999 with a GPA a little less than my high school one, search for a job, buy my first car–a periwinkle blue Toyota Corolla–and the Columbine shooting takes place. Pokemon is all the rage. I still have the hots for Prince Charming, but it seems all he ever wants to be is friends. I spend many, many summers teaching at youth camps in Austria, further hone my German, meet my friend Steph over there, see many European youth come to Christ and make long-lasting relationships. I get my nose pierced, bleach my hair and dye it hot pink.

When I am in the thick of my awesome job teaching elementary art in a great school district–and still sporting pink hair–Prince Charming contacts me out of the blue in the winter of 2000. We’ve never really been friends outside of church, though my mad crush still lingers. He professes his love for me, tells me he always knew we’d get married, and wants to start together on the path towards forever by beginning to date. I am amazed, flattered, stunned and a little freaked out. He wants to know if I’m on board. I say, “No,” and refuse to talk to him for a solid year.

I feel badly for the way I rejected Prince Charming and really regret doing so. In the winter of 2001, I get up the nerve to call him while I’m back home for Christmas break. I tell him I knew it had burned the relationship bridge between the two of us and that there was no more hope for that, but that I just wanted him to know that I was sorry for turning him down the way I did and that I actually regretted it. As he went on with his life, I didn’t want him to look back and feel rejected. I tell Prince Charming how great I think he is, what a good husband I know he’ll make someone someday, apologize for shunning him, and ask if we can still be friends. He says yes, and that he is actually still in love with me. I am floored and giddy. I give him a big hug, and then must return back to the big city to my job teaching art. The No Child Left Behind Act is signed into law.

I do not hear from Prince Charming for 3 straight weeks and I practice waiting for him to make the moves. He eventually does and we begin officially dating in January, 2002. He was watching Uncle Duke in an indoor swimming pool when he asked me on the phone if I’d be his girlfriend.

In August 2002, we had our first kiss, just after I returned from a vacation. To this day, I can’t believe he held off that long, but I am as impressed with his integrity now as I was then. I am heavily into sunbathing and get very tan this summer.

After having a long distance relationship for a year and a half, Prince Charming and I get engaged and then married just a few days later in a small, private ceremony in October, 2003. I wear a black dress. He wears a hot pink bow tie. He then moves in to the house I had in the city and starts to dream about building his own company.

In the winter of 2004, Big Mac is born, two months after our first wedding anniversary. I leave my job teaching elementary art and begin to offer private art lessons in the summer instead. I bring baby Big Mac to the lessons with me and have my students help take care of him and feed him bananas, which he loves. Prince Charming gets his general contractor’s license and starts a small business that he runs out of our basement. George W. Bush is re-elected president.

MckNugget is born in the summer of 2006. Big Mac is 19 months old. I have bounds of pent-up creative energy and need an outlet. I take up photography as a hobby and photograph my friends’ children as well as my own. My friend Rachel tells me that I should really start a blog as well. I respond by asking, “What’s a blog?” The next day, I start this blog and never look back. Even then, I often post at least once a day. Blogging helps me find my voice and rediscover my love of writing.

In the winter of 2007, Prince Charming’s business grows, Anna Nicole Smith dies, I start a photography business, and my blog gets about 700 hits a day. I post about nutrition, parenting, photography and our family and get an average of 3 comments per post. When MckNugget is 6 months old, we get pregnant again.

In fall, 2007, Small Fry is born. In a desire to make my blog more anonymous, I come up with stage names for my family. I first create the name “MckMama” for myself, because it incorporates the letters M, C and K, which are the first letters of our children’s names and also the first letters of our last name. I think it’s ingenious, but can’t stand that it seems to allude to McDonald’s. I decide that I can’t think of anything better and that I’ll embrace the McDonald’s theme after all. I re-name our children after McDonald’s menu items and even I think I’m a bit crazy.

By February of 2008, Prince Charming and I are proclaiming to anyone who will listen that we are done having children, and then proceed to get pregnant with MckMuffin when Small Fry is only 4 months old.

May of 2008 holds one of my blog’s first Name That Photo contests.

In mid July, 2008, our unborn baby is diagnosed with heart failure. I am admitted to the hospital where I remain for nearly three weeks as doctors try to save MckMuffin’s life. We are told that our baby will not survive. We decide to find out the gender of our baby and name him Stellan. We desire that everyone know who our wonderful son is before he’s gone. We make plans for a Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep bereavement photographer to join us in the hospital for Stellan’s birth and death, believed to be imminent. But God has other plans. Angie, Nate, and countless other bloggers selflessly offer up prayers and even link to us. A prayer movement begins for our son. Stellan comes out of heart failure, begins to get better, and I leave the hospital, still pregnant! We are amazed by God, by the power of prayer and by how our news spread around the internet. I begin to wonder if this is why God led me to begin my blog in the first place.

In September, 2008, I write this post entitled I did not!, and many people love it so much that I am inspired to create a blog carnival that I name Not Me! Monday. My blog gets many more than 700 hits a day and many amazing comments. I feel so blessed and have fun with my blog. I am given many offers to make money with my blog. I turn them down.

By late summer of 2008, stress and Satan get in between me and my husband. Our marriage suffers. The police are involved as I call them after my husband gets terribly verbally abusive with me and is arrested and, although he does not serve jail time, the punitive effects on our family are many. God uses it for His glory, though, by reaching down and showing us His plan for marriage, forgiving us, healing wounds and setting us on a new and beautifully glorious path that we would not have been on otherwise. I write this post about what I’ve learned about submitting to my husband and how it has made all the difference in our relationship.

Very late in October, 2008, our fourth baby MckMuffin is born with no heart problems to speak of. Prince Charming and I cannot stop praising God for our son’s healing. And thanking all of you for joining us in our journey of faith. More offers to add ads to my blog come my way. I say a polite “No, thanks.” My mother in law moves in with us.

By fall, 2008, I continue to share our life through blogging, unbeknownst to our MSC (Many Small Children), who spend their days in a family full of Many Big Blessings, knowing nothing about MckAnything to do with my blog. I strive to love my husband as God would have me to, and to parent our children together with him in a balanced, loving way. I sometimes fail, sometimes succeed, but always push forwards. President Obama is elected.

In January of 2009 financial stress seems to overtake us. The economy suffers and contracting work is hard to come by. We live paycheck to paycheck, if that, and fall behind on our house payments. I am recognized and called “MckMama” in public regularly.

Stellan is unexpectedly hospitalized in March of 2009. His SVT returns, even though we thought he had outgrown it. Our world is sent into a tailspin as a 6 week hospitalization begins. Stellan is very sick, is airlifted to Boston Children’s Hospital for heart surgery, but his SVT is not cured.

Stellan comes home finally in the beginning of May, 2009. On heart medication to control his heart rate, his SVT still remains largely uncontrolled. Another surgery remains a possibility, but his doctors express a desire to wait until he is older and bigger. Our other children are resilient and tolerate the time well. Prince Charming and I commit to clinging to each other during the stress, ever though it is difficult.

After having some discussions with trusted friends, we decide to see if we can create an income with my blog, which I already love keeping up with. In late spring, 2009, we add ads to my blog, and initially give all the money away to charities.

As the summer of 2009 comes, we come face to face with putting our house on the market lest we lose it to foreclosure. We spend a lot of time swimming and enjoying our family in the warm weather, determined to make lemonade with life hands us lemons. We start to look into alternative places to live that might work better for our family. A MckPicnic and MckBrunch bring some of our local blog readers into our real lives and we are enriched because of those new relationships. We also begin to be able to start supporting our family with money from my blog as well as continuing to support a handful of ministries, missionaries and charities. We are thankful that I am able to start to become a professional blogger, as blogging is something I have already loved to do for years. Praising God for the creatives ways He provides, Prince Charming keeps working hard at his business, too.

In July of 2009, we continue to see our wonderful marriage therapist and celebrate our one year anniversary of marriage counseling and marriage restoration. We decide to take a short trip to California to visit my grandma, who had never met 3/4 of our children and has Alzheimer’s and can no longer travel. We also visit Uncle Duke, who is about to graduate from the Marines. Although we are there too early to see him actually graduate, we get to spend brief time with him and are thankful. Stellan is hospitalized again and things go poorly for him, even though it was supposed to be a “routine” stay. He almost heads to Boston again, but his SVT finally gets under control, this time with three separate heart medications he now takes eight times a day.

As for late summer of 2009? That is unfolding as we speak. We are blessed to have gotten to know many of you, some in person and some only virtually for now, through my blog. We struggle to learn to praise God in the storms of our life, for they are many. But as we look back, we can clearly see that God has been with us all the while, even when it has not seemed like it.

And what about you, dear ones? What journey as God had you on in your life? When and how did you intercept our lives? Now that you know more about how on earth it is that I became MckMama, I’d love to hear about how you came to be sitting on that end of the computer.

Do share, if you want. I’m all ears!